Senators seek harsher penalties for pet cruelty

Bill’s supporters link animal abuse to domestic violence

Linking the crime to domestic violence, a Senate panel voted February 8 to demand harsher penalties and expand state laws on what constitutes animal abuse.

Existing law already makes it a Class 6 felony to intentionally or knowingly inflict unnecessary physical injury to an animal. The same penalty – a year in state prison – applies to those who subject any animal to cruel mistreatment.

SB1295 would create a special Class 5 felony for subjecting pets to cruel mistreatment. And the same penalty would apply for killing a pet without the owner’s consent.

Deputy Pima County Attorney Kathleen Mayer conceded the difference in sentence is just six months.

But she told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that judges are free to decide that Class 6 felonies should instead be sentenced as misdemeanors and placed on probation.

What makes that important, she said, is that misdemeanor probation is unsupervised, meaning people are not required to get treatment. But a judge can require those convicted of Class 5 felonies to get help to deal with issues of anger and lack of empathy.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery told lawmakers this is about more than animals.

“Animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people than non-abusers,” he said. “And 70 percent of those charged with cruelty to animals were known to police for other violent behavior, including homicide.”

The links, Montgomery said, are even more telling.

“While not every abuser becomes a serial killer, almost every serial killer has in their history some history of animal abuse,” he said. Montgomery said that’s why prosecutors want to find these people before their violence accelerates.

That sentiment was echoed by Carrie Borgen, executive director of the Sojourner Center, which helps victims of domestic violence. She cited a study saying a person’s history of pet abuse “is one of the foremost indicators of who is greatest at risk of becoming a batterer.”

The main opposition came from Patrick Bray, lobbyist for the Arizona Cattleman’s Association, who worried that the language of the measure is so broad that it could be used to charge ranchers with felonies if they kill dogs that are chasing their cattle. And Bray said there has been at least one such case already brought against a rancher even under existing laws.

Mayer, however, told lawmakers that the key to whether someone faces a charge depends on the individual circumstances. She said that the key to any animal abuse law is whether someone inflicts “unnecessary” physical injury.

Montgomery said Arizona law contains various “justification” defenses to crimes. So, for example, he said anyone charged with killing an animal could argue that they acted in defense of themselves or others.

That still did not convince Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa. He questioned what would happen if a pet owner decided to kill his or her own animal after learning, after the fact, it had harmed someone else. Mayer said there would be no crime committed.